


s

by flight815kitsune



Category: The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom, Warm Bodies - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Warm Bodies AU, warm bodies crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 02:03:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 10,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1410883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flight815kitsune/pseuds/flight815kitsune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A warm bodies au for the avengers. In which Steve is a zombie, and the tower houses survivors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

inspired by [this pos](http://sconee.tumblr.com/post/79597253163)t, though i admit it’s gotten away from me. Ambiguous Avengers fandom. Uses canon from the Warm Bodies novel and film, not really compliant with The New Hunger. 

 

After the world had gone to shit, New York had flooded. At first, this had been a major problem. However, when dead things stopped staying dead, the water wasn’t so bad. Corpses didn’t swim.

The tower was an island, a source of hope for those that could reach it. Far too few had managed to come in the past few years. With the way parts of the city were drying out, maybe others would come soon. The weather seemed to be adopting a more normal pattern, maybe they’d be able to establish radio contact with someone soon.

Tony was out on a run. He didn’t like to leave his group alone for long, but this was a small trip into the city. Anything too far away and he’d never get back in time to save them. That was part of the reason he hadn’t just picked a direction and flown to look for anyone a long time ago, the threat of more blood on his hands. Others had gone out, before. A lot of them hadn’t come back. He had plans for if they ever managed to get in contact. If they were dead there was nothing he would be able to do, but if they weren’t he had to be prepared.

He always came back. It wasn’t because he was the best fighter. Or the best strategist. It sure as hell wasn’t because other people watched his back. The armor was rough, parts had been used for more important things (After a bad electrical storm, his choice had been to have Jarvis live on in the tower or the suit. His best chance was the tower) but even running on the bare minimum, it remained armor. It protected him from bites, and it was hard to get your teeth into something that could get off the ground.

They had put it off for as long as they could, but supplies were running low. They needed fresh wire, medicines, shoes. He needed to go out, for the greater good. Because that was what he had always done and what he could always do- sacrifice whatever parts of himself he had left  to play hero.

Touching down and feeling dirt under the boots had once been a relief that things were returning to normal. Now, he’d prefer sloshing through water. Water was safer.

He ended up in some electronics store, getting more wire to perfect the lighting system for the garden. A family of four had found them, and if another managed to do the same, they’d need to increase food production. It was better to be prepared.

And then came the dead, a flood of not-quite-humanity in the streets around the store. Groaning. They seemed to know that his armor wasn’t hollow in previous encounters. Maybe it was something they could smell, some way they could hear his vital signs, or even some way they could pick up the electrical activity of muscles and thought.

He waited for them to pass before going out into the street. Between the bags from here and his past two pit stops, he had a nice load of supplies. Unfortunately, this meant that he has to walk. He couldn’t trust himself to compensate for the weight without the stabilizers in his hands on the whole two hours of sleep he’d managed in the past week, so he stepped as lightly as a man in a tin can could.

He only made it a few blocks before he could just hear them on the wind again.  But he’s fast, and smart, and he hid. The alley stank like piss and booze even this long after the end of the world. Sour and all too familiar. Maybe it was all in his head, but there were worse hallucinations to have in a zombie apocalypse than a bad smell.

He was almost back home, his refuge with civilians, superheroes, and friends alike, when a group came out of nowhere. He puts the goods to the side. They were too close. He had to eliminate the threat, couldn’t risk bringing any of them home with him.

These were the ones that looked like jerky. Thin skin stretched taut over a skeleton. All ghoul, no man. Not anymore. Faster and stronger than the run-of-the mill versions of the walking dead. They pulled him down but he never stopped swinging. The metal dented in one or two places where scrabbling fingers managed to catch on the surface. If he let them win it would all be over- but the thought of being ripped to pieces was too much of a cost. He might have argued with himself over even considering that idea, once. Maybe he would, later, when everyone was taken care of and he managed to get some sleep.

It was easy enough to turn the tide of the fight. The moves were ones he’d used a million times in a million situations. They cracked, tore and broke into a mess of bones and tattered flesh. They never bled as much as the others. When he stood, the old blood splattering his armor seemed like nothing compared to the number he’d taken down.

He picked up movement in his peripheral vision.

The repulsor came up on reflex.

The sight forced the breath from his lungs, made tears prickle his eyes. He knew he was shaking because he had a target but couldn’t steady his aim.

Steve. Steve with a dark stain of blood across the stripes on his abdomen.

He had been lost, all this time they had hoped…

 _He_  had hoped.

Steve was smart, fast, strong, he knew how to stay hidden. He just couldn’t come back yet. Maybe he had found others, and been unable to return.

He wasn’t supposed to be like  _that_ , wasn’t supposed to be one of them.

The grime on his face reminded him of fights long ago. Tears in the uniform revealed oozing gashes and greying skin. The shield was probably strapped to his arm. He probably would have lost it a long time ago if it hadn’t been. Discarded like so many other tokens of the world that was before.

Maybe it had kept it. Sometimes, there were ones that did that. There had been a woman with a dog leash. An old man with a cane he didn’t use as he stumbled along. There were ones that had been children once, clinging to dolls and teddy bears.

The last time he had hesitated like this had been for one of them. A little boy clinging to a plastic spider-man who had held entrails in his other hand while blood smeared his face like spaghetti sauce.

Steve stepped closer

It wasn’t Steve,  _this_  wasn’t Steve.

Another step.

Those eyes were cold grey, not the bright blue they were supposed to be.

Another step.

It wasn’t him, where there should be recognition (it didn’t matter if it would have been pleased or angry, not anymore,  it would have been better than this lost look) there was nothing. it was the expression of a word on the tip of your tongue, an actor you couldn’t place.

It stared into the eye slots like it could see through them.

He lifted the faceplate.

Steve deserved this. Deserved to see him. No hiding, even if it was just a creature that wore his face.

His hand had fallen to his side, and it didn’t matter until the panic when the final step was taken, bringing their chests together.

Steve’s-his- _its_  arm went around his shoulder, behind his neck. Drew him closer.

He expected teeth in the soft flesh of his cheek. Expected augmented  strength made even stronger by becoming Other to break his neck, armor and all. Expected to be pulled to the ground and have the shield come down once and for all, punishment and mercy in one.

He hadn’t expected the soft squeeze when it turned away and sighed against the metal.


	2. Chapter 2

He didn’t really know how he had gotten like this. He knew he hadn’t always been this way. He knew he hadn’t always been  _dead_. That wasn’t how things worked. You had to have been alive once to be a zombie.

He couldn’t remember much. He didn’t know how things had gotten this way. He didn’t know how he knew the things that he did (was amnesia like that? It felt like amnesia was like that). He didn’t know his own name, why he walked the streets, or even why he clung to the round piece of metal like his life (afterlife?) depended on it.

He did know that the ones like him tasted wrong, but that the thought of warm blood in his mouth and screams in his ears was somehow  _worse_. He didn’t remember most of them but he did remember one, back in the beginning. He had woken up? come into himself? been reborn? zombified? on his stomach in a pool of blood. It was dark except for a low fire casting a man in silhouette. Grimy hands on things that were valuable, once. Soft skin over delicate vessels was no match for incisors, hunger, and rage.

Part of him was filled with nausea for days after, remembering the tough gristle of trachea and the sick crack of skull on pavement. Nausea seemed nostalgic. The desire for another taste was definitely not.

He knew that this city was just as much his  _before_  as it is now. He knew every dark corner and every empty street. It was indescribably beautiful in the mornings and at sunset, when the light shined off of some buildings and cast others into shadow. Shades of copper, monarch’s wings, and blush contrasting steel and stone. Cool blues on fog-swarmed streets. With winter came so many shades of grey accented with faint crystal glimmers that it would take his breath away, if he still breathed.

And he was  _damn_  sure that he knew the man in red and gold better than he currently knew himself.

 

He knew the armor. He had caught a glimpse of that shine and had tried to keep a safe distance when he followed. The living were dangerous, and he knew this one could kill him.

He saw the ambush. The man in the armor had wandered too close to a hive.

When he fought, he knew the moves. Moving too slow- not at the top of his game. He had left his side open. If it hadn’t been for the armor, teeth would have torn the flesh from his hip. They could have wrenched his arm out of it’s socket when he was in that position. His back was too open- they could snap his neck… It could have ended a dozen ways with those mummies involved if he was just a second slower.

He hadn’t realized how close he had gotten until the weapon had turned to him. He knew that that palm pointed at him was a weapon.

He couldn’t offer any calming words. Even on a good day, there was only rarely a glimmer of a syllable that was more than groan. He’d come across others, who had tossed out words to each other, but something between his brain and his throat messed it up. There was a girl once, who had stared at him like he held all the answers. It must have taken him an hour to say “Hi”, and by that point she had lost interest.

The man in the armor was shaking. That was  _wrong_. The faceplate came up and the expression was so broken that it made his throat dry and his head ache somewhere in his sinuses. He was far too pale, with dark circles under his eyes and five o’clock shadow on his cheeks. The sharp tang of life on the back of his tongue made whatever primal hunger he possessed demand to be acknowledged.

The hand dropped.

He wanted to offer thanks, or voice his intentions, but his throat only bobbed. It seemed like he knew how to give a speech, once. Though, with how badly he was managing now, maybe he hadn’t been that good at it. He set his jaw to keep his teeth from gnashing. He took the last step and offered the only thing he could- a small show of nonaggression in a violent world.

The other man didn’t run.

He knew that the embrace had stretched on for too long. Unfortunately, his balance wasn’t what it used to be, and he was sort of… topheavy. He was unsteady on his feet when he managed to pull away. Sharp eyes searched his before the metal came back down.

“Thanks for, you know, not eating my face.”

He wavered when he went to pick up his things. Definitely in rough shape. He headed down the street with his load.

He was going the wrong way. There was another hive in that area in just a couple blocks. The building used to be a toy store and was now overflowing with a hundred or so corpses and mummies. It was too dangerous to take on alone, especially when he was like this.

He tried to follow, but can’t make his limbs move fast enough for the new pace. Lagging behind.

He had to do something. The “nnn” sound starts in his mouth.

He kept walking. He was going to get himself killed.

“Nnnn-”

They’d crack him open like a lobster.

“Nnnnnn-”

The torso or the hands would be first. Both places had sacrificed strength for mobility. The head would probably remain intact. He’d end up like  _this_ , not knowing who he was or why he kept walking.

“NO.” The word is torn from his throat. The force pulled all the air from his lungs and made him waver on already unsteady feet.

The movement of the suit ceased.


	3. Chapter 3

He was going to pretend he hadn’t come across it. He couldn’t take that shot, and since it hadn’t attacked him he could pretend it wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t like he had dragged it behind him. It wasn’t a chihuahua nipping at his ankles the whole way home. It was a corpse.

He made himself move quickly enough to outpace it.

It made him stop with one single word. Sometimes, they made noises. He swore one groaned “Brains” once. But they didn’t  _yell_  like that.

He was probably imagining things. It was a groan. Hoping for anything else was wishful thinking, and there wasn’t room for that anymore. The thought of someone coming back had to be accounted for with supplies and group dynamics, but once there was confirmation that they were dead they no longer mattered. It was just another member of a horde, a human locust. He couldn’t provide a good reason for why he turned to look. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.” The words were clean and mechanical, like a phone message from an eternity ago.

It swung its arm in the direction he was heading and jerked its head to the side.

“I got nothing.”

A huff. That same arm movement coupled with what was then  identifiable as a head shake.

“Seriously. I have no idea what you’re doing.”

It looked stricken before setting its jaw in an all-too-familiar way. It took a deep breath-

-and promptly huffed it all out through its nose.

Another intake of breath, this one accompanied by a growl.

This cycle repeated itself until a whisper of the word “hive” broke free.

“Holy shit.” The bags fell from his hands. “Did you just say  _hive_?”

A moment of that creepy silver gaze before a sharp nod.

“You understand me.”

A nod.

"And you don’t want to eat me?"

The shrug didn’t really inspire a whole lot of confidence. 

"Is that a ‘not yet’? I feel like that was a ‘not yet’."

It rolled its eyes at him, and that settled it- he was  having a conversation with a zombie. His mind whirred with plans and ideas.

It all boiled down to one thing: he had to take it back. Even if it was just as a test subject. Who knew how the serum could have reacted to whatever it was that usually changed them?

Maybe it was a step towards a cure. Maybe, even dead, Steve could save the world.

“Take me where there isn’t a hive.”

It led the way and he followed a short step behind. The detour took them blocks out of the way. The group was expecting him by tomorrow at the latest, and the sun was already going down.

His boot caught on a piece of metal debris that might have been part of a car once, and he stumbled.

It caught him. The strength was above-human, but there was no way of telling if it was stronger than the super-soldier strength Steve had had before or just the power that all of them seemed to have.

It stared down the block. When they reached an abandoned coffee shop, it broke down the door.

Flooding and time had probably ruined all the grounds, but he added a few of the sealed packages of French Roast from the top of a shelf to his supplies anyway.

It had rearranged and tipped a few tables and moved some industrial-sized burlap bags of beans to form what could only be called a nest.

“What are you doing?”

It blinked at him slowly, like a cat staring from across the room.

“What?”

The eyes close for longer the second time. A sigh. It turned its back to him and leaned against the doorframe. The tables would keep anything walking down the street from seeing him. It was guarding him. It was a familiar situation. 

“No bedtime story?”

A short short huff that might have been laughter, once.

He drifted off a few times. Though the suit wasn’t exactly comfortable and he snapped awake at random sounds, it was better than he managed on a usual night. He didn’t know what that said about him, that he could sleep better in the presence of the living dead than in his own home.

He woke up to the tap of a piece of plastic cutlery impacting the faceplate. Considering that his first instinct was to fire straight ahead, that was probably a good idea. The tinkle of sporks when he stood up showed that it wasn’t a single attempt. Or that being a zombie negatively impacted your aim. 

Heading out in the fog that had rolled in was like entering a video game. The eerie quiet set him on edge.

“Do you know where we’re going?”

A nod.

“The tower.”

It didn’t respond.

“You know where I live?”

A shrug.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Another shrug.

“You’re not offering a lot of insight to the whole zombie thing, you know. Seriously, I finally find one that knows English and the only words I get are ‘no’ and ‘hive’.”

It stopped and took a breath. The hiss through teeth clearly the letter s. Walking and moving couldn’t be done simultaneously, apparently. He cut it off before he had to wait another ten minutes to move.

“Don’t apologize. You‘ve been mostly dead all day. Year. Four years. Some skills are bound to get rusty.” When he put a hand on its shoulder, it  _stared_. Again. A muscle twitched in its jaw and he erred on the side of caution and removed himself from the zombie immediately.

He hated the silence, but if the trade-off was keeping his limbs, he’d take it. 

 

The tower seemed to appear out of nowhere. Which was great, because that meant he hadn’t been led into a zombie death trap. It also made him come to the realization that although he wanted to study the member of the undead that had led him here, others in his little group might not be so eager to accept the presence of one of them in their midst. He would have to hide it. The whole thing was like trying to sneak in a stray pet. Except pets only very rarely decide to chew someone’s face off.

There were three ways to enter the tower. The first was through the stairs in the lobby. The second was the elevator. Either of these worked well enough for people. The stairs required a lot of effort and coordination that zombies couldn’t seem to master, though. If he wanted to try to force it up them, he’d need a lot of time. The elevator was still buggy, even with the repairs he had managed to make, and might not let them out on a floor where grey skin didn’t result in a bullet between the eyes on sight.

Which really only left only option #3: the landing pad.

Talking the real deal through the process had been hard enough. Watching this thing try to follow directions was  _painful_.

He did manage to get it to hold the bags, step on his boot, and throw an arm over his shoulder eventually. He had found a hold on its waist and turned on the thrusters. It was going well, until about 4 floors up when it shifted its footing the wrong direction. It had started to fall, and he had clung to the uniform. With the rips that were already in it, it shouldn’t have been surprising that it tore. It landed and Tony offered himself a brief moment of horror while hovering before speeding to the ground. It was flat on its back, though the bone shard poking out of its thigh suggested that its legs had absorbed at least some of the impact.

Vertebrae and ribs crackled into place as it forced itself up.  It manipulated its limb to force it back to working order.

“Well that’s creepy.”

It didn’t fall a second tim e.


	4. Chapter 4

The whole place was giving him deja vu. That was a good sign, right? He knew the layout of the rooms without being told, knew which pieces of tech and furniture weren’t there anymore and which were brand new. He knew it wasn’t this empty before.  It was stranger to feel this place empty than any of the streets outside.

His friend in the suit had left with the stuff he needed. At least, it seemed like they had been friends once. Hopefully nothing was damaged from the fall. He hadn’t heard any glass breaking or anything, but that didn’t mean that something hadn’t cracked.

He wandered around the rooms that weren’t locked. It wasn’t that he couldn’t open the doors. He might be able to. Knobs weren’t too difficult. He knew he could force one off of its hinges if he wanted to. It just seemed  _wrong_.

The quiet weighed on him. He had wandered for a long time without  anything but his own scattered thoughts, but now it seemed oppressive.He missed being talked to. Even though the voice had been mechanical and cold, the way certain phrases had been spoken was frustratingly familiar.

He came across some paper on a table littered with pencils. Some had partially drawn plans on them. Things created for a world like this. He pulled a blank sheet and wielded the pencil like an inexperienced fighter would hold a knife. Making fresh lines in the white space just seemed  _right_.

He wasn’t writing. He couldn’t make his eyes focus on the words on signs and didn’t expect to be able to make them work for something smaller.

The angle was wrong the paper tore in a few places where the pressure of the tool was too much.  It wasn’t a highly skilled piece of work, but it represented what he wanted it to. The man in the suit of armor. A woman. A large man. A smaller man. He couldn’t remember exact proportions, any real features of their clothes or faces.  There were others who he knew existed but couldn’t even bring something as simple as their gender to his mind. He knew they were important. Before whatever had happened, they were important. He knew that he could have named every one of them. Not now.

He knew that he had zoned out staring at the page when he felt himself slowly being prodded with a broom.

He blinked the dust from his eyes.

“Ground control to Major Tom.” And that voice was so much better without the electronic distortion. He  _knew_  it. He just didn’t know  _how_.

“Now we’re back to the creepy staring. Great.” He rubbed his face. He was past due for a shave. The few strands of grey mixed in were more noticeable without the gold and red to frame them. “I brought you some clothes. They’re not great but I figured they’d be better than you looking like James T. Kirk.”

It was nice just to watch muscles move the way they were intended to, to see the easy gestures as he spoke.

“Not the remake, the original.”

He was still wearing one gauntlet. Wires ran up his arm and connected to the light in his chest. He was thinner. He used to be tanned from the sun, now he was only a few shades different from the dead.

Fingers snapped  a few times to get his attention. “I’m trying to tell you to put a shirt on.” He tossed the clothes, making some of the paper and one rogue pen fall to the ground.

Getting out of what he was currently wearing and into something new was easier in theory than in practice.  It had never occurred to him to try it before.

Getting out of the boots was unexpectedly worrying. He knew what trench foot was. (He knew what trenches were, and warfare. He knew about the army, chains of command and big-name generals. Battles he knew had been fought a very long time ago. Maybe he was really into history once.) Since his feet definitely had poor circulation and the insides of his boots seemed wet, he fully expected to see something closer to bone and hamburger meat than anything recognizable as a foot. His socks had holes worn in them, and what looked like mold closer to his ankles. But when he peeled them off, his feet were still feet. His toes were a slightly darker shade of grey, and the nails looked like they belonged on an infomercial, but they weren’t so bad. His gloves inspired the same concern, but his hands were in good enough shape. He was missing some skin around the joints, but nothing that would be worse than a bad blister in a living person. The uniform clung to everything. The area around the hole through his abdomen was bad. Coagulated…whatever it was had pretty much glued the fabric to him. While he couldn’t help the muscles jerking when he pulled parts of it off, he was  _trying_  to move gently. He’d seen others like him lose flesh to any number of things, and wasn’t in any hurry to add “skin fused to clothing” to a list that included wild dogs, fire, and barbed wire. Accidentally disemboweling himself would probably complicate things.

The button to his pants had popped off when he tugged, flying to parts unknown.

He had managed to get everything off and the pants on (admittedly crooked and after having gotten a toe stuck in a small hole partway down the leg for the better part of five minutes) before the other man came to check on him.

“Need a hand?”

He could do this. He managed to get one arm into the tee shirt before jamming his hand through the neck hole. He frowned at the offending piece of clothing.

The other man breathed a laugh and wore a sad, uneven smile. “We’ve got to get you to stop making that face.” He probably thought he was hiding the pain in his voice.

While he managed to get into the shirt without any issue, the jacket was more than he could handle.

One glance was all it took to get the other man closer.

“You’re not going to bite me.” It seemed like he was voicing it more for his own sake than anything, but the head shake seemed to make him relax all the same. He only touched the sleeves and shoulders of the hoodie to pull it on, never room-temperature skin. He tugged the zipper and looked at him with a cautious curiosity. “Come on, I’ve got questions.”


	5. Chapter 5

Its feet hung off the edge of the couch even though its head was on the armrest. It was easier to think of it as not being Steve when it wasn’t in his uniform. He could see the grey flesh and the darker circles under silver eyes. He could focus on the way that the blonde strands stuck up in every angle but down. He could focus on the smell that screamed zombie and almost ignore the resemblance. The only thing that ruined the illusion was seeing that determination on display. In a heartbeat, all the ways that he had told himself the face was different would be overwritten with memories of him covered in ash, with his hair a mess from his cowl, back from a mission on his own stinking of jungle and looking tired but satisfied .

Through a series of mainly yes and no questions, he was able to figure out that most, but not all, of the undead favored living in hives. The ones that looked like jerky might be in charge, but since his source of information was not a member of a hive that theory could not be completely proven. He learned that while they ate, they never felt the need to drink. Their bodies didn’t produce waste. They sort-of slept. The answer to that one had resulted in a lot of frustrated shrugs and attempts to talk that got as far as “Stops” and vague gestures before they were both unwilling to attempt for more. There were so many questions and while sometimes an answer took time to produce, he always got one.

When he voiced a complicated question, it gazed unblinking at the ceiling posed like a man in a coffin until it could form a response. Which was weird, but not too much of a hurdle.

He took blood samples (for a given definition of blood), saliva samples, hair samples, skin scrapings, everything he could to try and analyze this.

He was tempted to do a bone marrow biopsy, but wasn’t sure how permanent any holes drilled in bones would be.

All of the tests he did run came back inconclusive.

There was a saying about insanity being attempting the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.

Here he was, running tests that had already been done by dozens of others with far more experience and better equipment than he had and hoping to come up with something new.

 

It was strange to consider a zombie as his latest project, but he was neglecting social obligations and his body’s basic needs in an attempt to figure something out.

It said a lot about the kind of lives they had led that he had a long list of post-concussion questions to choose from for cognitive tests. It didn’t know anything, except for where it was now (‘tower’) and what happened (though the answer to that was a shrug and vague ‘died’). It seemed to like the view. More than once he had finished running a test or thought of a new line of questioning only to find his target staring out over a changed New York.

 

In the mornings he’d be with the group. Most points of discussion had been covered years ago, but occasionally something unusual would happen or someone would find a book that had been hidden away and share the story with the rest of them. Mostly it was an excuse to talk to Jarvis and Pepper. She was usually the one who voiced concerns to him. It didn’t matter if she was in a suit or relaxing with her copper hair in a messy bun and drowning in a sweater, she was more approachable and a more capable leader than he currently was. While some of their little group had known him before all of this went down, and others realized that he was a mostly-normal person, there were some who were intimidated by him. It hadn’t helped that he was the sort-of leader in the beginning and had started focusing more on the big picture than individual faces when those faces stopped being familiar ones. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about his group- he wanted the best for them. Wanting them to survive, wanting them to live, didn’t make heart-to-heart talks mandatory. It would only leave him with more details of their lives when something he messed up on caused their deaths. The armor had given people an impression that he was more machine than man. He just didn’t challenge those thoughts like he used to. It was better for everyone that way.

Pepper would forgive him for forcing her into it, eventually.

 

Afternoon through dawn was a time to question everything, and speak to a captive audience before locking himself in his room if he needed sleep.

It was during a small break in their conversation about how exactly decay progresses that it asked him his name. Well, it said “Nnn…ame” and pointed at him. The words were coming faster, but were still few and far between. There were syllable breaks in unexpected places and sometimes the end of a word would be cut off, like it didn’t know how to utilize breathing properly. Still, improvement was improvement and it was taking less time to get more information.

It had been reflex to smile and say “Tony Stark” with a wink.

It had sort of…gone offline for a while before smiling back.

They ended up back on the topic of what role weather played on undead skin condition like it hadn’t even happened.

 

The next morning it woke him up with two slightly too hard and fast raps on the door and saying his name. He bolted up and, as soon as the reality he was currently living in sunk in, buried his face in his hands.  The familiar ache of recognizing how alone he was had been gone for just an instant, and he would give anything for that ignorance of being half-asleep again.

 

Discussing the differences between life, death and undeath was difficult. He knew he was raising his voice when he was trying to distinguish between ‘dead’ and ‘really dead’.

“All…dead”

“No.”

“Tony.”

“It’s not ‘all dead’. There is a big difference between you guys walking around and the ones that stop moving and never get up again.” He was damn near poking a zombie in the chest.

Then it had stared at his hand and said “Knew me.”

“What?”

“Before, knew. Now…” It gestured to itself “Dead.”

“You aren’t dead.” He hadn’t realized how ingrained the thought was until it passed his lips.

He had to get away before it knew how messed up the words were. The best course of action was probably not to hole up in his room like a moody teenager and get into a staring contest with a bottle of scotch, but what was one more screw-up?


	6. Chapter 6

He knew he was staring off into space more than he had before. He knew that it was probably rude.

He didn’t care.

The pauses were the downloading of a new file or the buffering of a new video. (Using the comparison to technology felt right, here.)

Sometimes, there were words or the sight of something that would just make a previously vague idea come into focus. That was how it usually was when he stared out over the city. It was his city when he had walked the streets and it was his city now. Seeing parts of it in less-than-perfect shape was nothing new. There had been creatures and bombs and all kinds of destruction. As soon as the threat was gone, people rebuilt. They would manage it again.

Othertimes, he was rehearsing the words that he would say. Thinking about how to best answer a question. There were so many ways to phrase things, and if he could use two words instead of twenty, then the man with the armor was less likely to get bored or change the topic. It seemed strange to say that discussing if humidity impacted his mobility made him content, but it had. On a whim, he had asked a question of his own.  He had expected it to be skipped over. There was something the man with the armor wasn’t telling him. He was careful to keep him at arm’s length. Considering the experiences he had probably had with other undead people, it was entirely understandable.  

The wink and honest answer had thrown him for a loop. Something clicked. Tony Stark had been a hero before this happened. He had fought crime with a suit he built himself. He was a genius, who could figure out any problem you put in front of him (though he didn’t always solve it the ‘right’ way).

Tony Stark had been born into money, but built upon it himself. He flirted as easily as he breathed and the media had paid a lot of attention to those he chose to spend his time with. He gave more of himself than anyone and still expected criticism rather than praise. He was a celebrity and a hero.

It had felt natural to use this new knowledge. After all, it was only polite to use someone’s name.

The first time he had seen the reaction, he had written it off as surprise. After all, it’s not every day someone dead says hello. When the false smiles and barely-hidden tension persisted, it became impossible to ignore.

Tony Stark didn’t like being called by name.

 

Their first argument didn’t feel like their first argument. Tony’s forceful words and lack of respect for personal space was so damned familiar…

He wasn’t touching him. He knew he was supposed to be getting poked. That he had been before. Again, something just… fell into place. The glances, the smiles, the careful distance, the refusal to address him as anything but  _you_. He was afraid. He was afraid and it wasn’t a simple fear of the undead like any normal person. Tony was afraid, but not of what he was, but rather of what he had become. He didn’t know how to handle a creature that wore his friend’s face, or a voice that wasn’t right say his name.

“Knew me.”

“What?”

It had nothing to do with their current topic, so he attempted to clarify.

“Before, knew. Now, dead.” It was impossible to communicate, “I’ve come to the conclusion that you aren’t sure how to treat me because I may or may not be the person you once knew. That’s okay, I don’t know either, but I feel like it’s something that needs addressed.” with his current limitations.

“You aren’t dead.” It was as though he had said the sky was blue. Like the thought of him being dead was so completely foreign that there was no room for argument. But the words weren’t meant for him, they were meant for the man he used to be.

It wasn’t as though he liked being like this. He had just come to accept it.

Apparently Tony hadn’t.

Tony retreating to his room hadn’t allowed him to question it.

He didn’t answer to repeated attempts to knock.

Seeing dawn break over the city again had been the excuse he needed.. Kicking the door in was something he  _had_  to attribute to muscle memory. The doorframe had splintered.

Tony jolted awake from where he was slumped against his bed, plans in one hand and bottle in the other. At the disappointed look, he protested with “Oh, shut up. I didn’t open it.” He ran a hand through his hair (it was too long. It wasn’t supposed to fall like that. It was supposed to be wild soft spikes, not slightly-greasy and tamed) and put the bottle down.

He sat on the bed with a sigh. “…Sorry.”

Tony glanced at the door. “S’fine. I can fix it.”

“Nnnn…” certain letters got stuck in his throat. N was one of them. It was easier to start the word over from the beginning. “No.”

“No?”

“Sorry. For dying.”

He let out a huff of air. “Don’t say that.”

“Died. Changed.”

“Stop.” He was getting out of his position on the floor as quickly as he could. Tony wasn’t getting away that easily. There were things he needed to hear.

“Nnnneeded mme.” He blocked the route to the door. “Died. Sorry.”

He hadn’t expected the hand on his shoulder, warm and sure and  _alive_ through the material of the sweatshirt. He hadn’t expected the slightly manic gleam in familiar eyes. Hadn’t expected the lopsided smile. Little alarm bells were going off that that was a very dangerous expression. “I said stop. Come on. I’m working with a new hypothesis, Cap.”

  
Hadn’t expected his whole world to narrow down to that one. single. word.


	7. Chapter 7

He needed something to do in his self-imposed isolation. Something to keep him from cracking the seal on that bottle. Something to distract him from the idea that he held out hope for the hopeless. So, he grabbed a sheet of paper from one of the stacks that had migrated from room to room and decided to improve on what he had already started. He couldn’t tinker, but he could plan.

He missed tinkering. Feeling fresh metal and wires come together under his fingers had provided calm and purpose. Now he was lucky if they had resources to spare to make repairs to a window broken by hail or to fix a water pump.

There wasn’t enough new things in this world. Different places had fallen at different times, but while some places had stopped the better part of a decade ago, his small notes were a sign that they hadn’t stopped  _here_.

Four sheets in and he flipped one over to find a doodle on the back.

He had seen his new zombie companion with a pencil in his hand a few times. He hadn’t seen him actually  _use_  it. Clearly, he had. He had seen Steve’s drawings before, and this wasn’t the same combination of skill and practice that those were. Small things were familiar. The way hair fell, the pose, those were  _right_.  The thing was, he didn’t know if anyone else would recognize this for what it was, but as someone who had seen Natasha curled up with a book in a corner of the couch, it couldn’t be more obvious. The fingers barely rested on the spine, hair hiding her face, one foot tucked where the cushions met.

He flipped through the rest of them, plucking pieces out.

Namor’s stupid pointy eyebrows.

Clint’s shoulder.

T’challa’s mask.

Some were more detailed than others.

Mjolnir.

Spider-Man midswing.

Pepper’s legs in the heels she had gotten for Christmas.

Things that had to be from memory, that  _had_  to be a sign that something more was going on.

He couldn’t place some of them at all, there were messes of lines and generic figures.

He had only rested his eyes for one second before the door slammed in.

Honestly, he hadn’t expected it to last as long as it had. Pepper and a few others had ventured up here before. A few times, that meant banging on the door to drag him back down. No one had bothered once Rhodey had left. A new survivor had brought with her rumors of a base that had avoided destruction somewhere out west. He had told him to watch himself out there, and to “not get carried away with all the other GI Joes” (which had earned him the “You’re really doing this now? When I find some other marines- _when_ -  I’ll bring them back so we can kick your ass together.” with a smile he had needed to keep from flying after). He hadn’t come back.  

Sharing the place with a zombie had brought the odds up from “near 0” to about 50/50. He initially expected more imminent physical danger to be involved, but hey- not the worst case scenario for once.

 

Waking up was easy, between the door slam and the ideas flooding in. Even if half of them were useless, he had options. It felt nice to weigh options that probably wouldn’t result in someone’s death for a change.

 

He was apologizing. For dying. But that was just it, he wasn’t dead. Confused? Yes. Unable to remember much? Yep. With no real monitorable signs of life for mysterious (he really didn’t want to say possibly magical) reasons? Definitely. But none of those things mattered because he was still  _Steve_. The small signs were all there, now that he was looking for them.

He was a genius, he should have noticed the small changes in vocabulary, the body language, the increasingly common shows of emotion. Now he just had to figure out what was helping to fix this. Talking had gotten easier with practice. Maybe Steve just needed practice at the other things, too. Nothing so far seemed to make him act  _more_  like a stereotypical zombie, so it was worth a shot.

It had seemed natural to put a guiding hand on his shoulder. To turn and snap his fingers.

And then Steve had done that creepy frozen thing. It was like watching an otherwise good piece of tech suffer the blue screen of death. The not blinking was what made it so weird. It was probably a zombie thing. Maybe it was some mixture of file not found and insufficient memory.

Maybe you weren’t supposed to touch zombies. Maybe they were like rabbits and freezing was some part of an elaborate fear response that affected them when they weren’t in attack mode. Who would have discovered something like that? How many people had managed to touch zombies that weren’t all bitey?

 

It took longer than it usually did to get him back. He had leaned in closer to look for eye movement and gotten a whiff of zombie breath for his trouble.  As Steve blinked awake, he waved the drawings like a banner. “ _You_  have been hiding critical information. Come on, let’s talk about these.”

Clearly, his memory had a lot of holes. He didn’t remember names, but he listened to all the information he could. It felt weird to tell him about all the teammates he had fought beside when he was the one who had recruited them,  but it was worth it when he asked a question. It was never something that was common knowledge, it was always something like “Distraction arrow?”  or “Wings?” that would serve to clarify one of the things that he did remember.  For some reason, it was more satisfying that he knew Thor liked lattes rather than who Mr. Fantastic was. So,  _so_  much more satisfying.

Steve smiled, and it took the ache in his cheeks for him to realize he was doing the same.

 


	8. Chapter 8

“Cap.”

It was a crashing, falling that started somewhere around his navel, replaced by a bloom of something lighter near his collarbone.

Oh.

He remembered soft words. Friendly touches. A sense of home. More than home, a sense of belonging he hadn’t ever expected to have here.

He remembered smiles, winks, inside jokes.

Every inch of that ego on display and every inch of self-loathing.

Sparring sessions.

Fighting side by side.

Flying.

Oh.

Sesame seed bagels, hot coffee, cold coffee.

A snort at something he wasn’t allowed to find funny.

Sketches that never saw the light of day.

His heart used to beat a mile a minute.

When he blinked, Tony’s face was practically touching his.

“Oh.” It felt like there should have been a blush to hide.

Tony led him to the couch and spread the papers across the table. He was in his element as a teacher. There was a spark and a smile he didn’t shed and a tone to his voice.

It was easy to place the change in Tony as the mere presence of hope. Tony Stark was a man used to bad situations, and usually he found a way out of them. Sometimes, though, he explored every option and found nothing. When that happened, he tended to put whatever plans he had into action and wait for the inevitable. The Tony Stark who had found him in the city had been doing just that- waiting for the inevitable.

He had been alive before, but this was Tony truly  _living_.

The ache had started low in his abdomen. It wasn’t exactly a new sensation, it just usually wasn’t at the forefront. It was probably part of what passed for hunger when he was like this. Hunger when he was alive was a pull, a low ache. He  _knew_  hunger. Hunger used to fade if you didn’t pay attention to it for long enough. This didn’t fade, but it wasn’t really food he wanted now, was it? He couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten. Days had blended together when he had walked the city in a way that they couldn’t, now.

He didn’t know what he had last eaten, either. A memory of stringy muscle and tendon between his teeth felt recent, but maybe the taste of one of the mummies was something that stuck with you while the taste of soft flesh (living or dead) faded away into nothingness. The mummies were the most wrong things in existence, it would make sense for every aspect of them to be repulsive.

It was hard to get Tony to go. He had hoped that a break from smelling and feeling someone would help. Avoiding temptation by removing it. In theory, it would have the added benefit of keeping him from staring at Tony’s throat, from hearing the hint of happiness in his voice, from being dumbstruck when that smile was on him. It didn’t work, but at least Tony ate. It was nice that he could still talk him into it.

The couch had sort of become his, and he filled it to capacity.

He couldn’t really call what he did sleeping, but it was as close to it as he had come in a long time. It had seemed more final before, a blankness that demanded everything and enveloped you. There were colors this time, though he couldn’t seem to arrange them into images. There were voices. There was a sense of things unfinished that could have once been a nightmare but here was some mixture of reality and dream, because at least there was something in his head now.

He led (helped lead?) a team, once. 

He cared about all of them.

Tony Stark had meant more than anyone else.

And Tony had no idea  _why_ he mattered, because he had never told him.

A new person appearing had been a surprise, and Tony leaving the two of them alone to go repair something had been awkward.

It wasn’t that he didn’t recognize him. He did. He just wasn’t sure who he was, exactly.

“Talking, huh? Where’s Wayde when you need him?” He kicked back onto the couch, putting his feet up on the coffee table. “What did Tony talk about?”

“Team.”

His new (old) friend rolled his eyes. “Of course the first thing mom and dad did was talk about the kids. Did he tell you there aren’t a whole lot of us left?”

He stared at taped-up hands. It was more what Tony hadn’t said that had left that impression. “Who?”

He sighed. “In our group? Just me and Tony. Pepper hasn’t worn a suit in a long time, but you could count her in a pinch I guess…”

“Just  _you_?” And the emphasis was all wrong. It had come across as more accusatory than the lost question it was. There had been so many of them once that the thought of all of them scattered, dead, or like he was was devastating.

There was the wiggle of fingers. “Yeah, I know. I’m not the guy I’d bet on in this mess either. But if you ever need to pick a skill in a zombie apocalypse, perfect aim even in insane conditions is one that pays off. Turns out survival isn’t just for superheroes.”

Clint. This was Clint Barton. The archer, Hawkeye. He was a member of his team, and he was  _alive_. The realization almost felt like warmth.

“It’s alright. We’ve got a good group. Did Tony tell you about them?”

He shook his head.

“That’s a shame. Let me tell you about our little band of misfits…”

Nothing about Clint’s words was familiar except his voice.

He hadn’t realized the way he had curled in on himself until Clint pointed at his stomach. “You’re kind of…oozing there.”

He glanced down with a furrowed brow. When he unzipped the jacket, the paler shirt looked even worse, with the dark stain covering everywhere from his waist to halfway up his chest.

“Yeah. If you’re going to meet the rest, that probably won’t make the best impression. Does Tony have a first aid kit?” Clint looked him up and down. “And maybe some mouthwash?”


	9. Chapter 9

“Pep. I want to do something crazy.”

“I really don’t think I can handle any more crazy this week, Tony. Mrs. Morales has had false labor pains twice and the lights on level 12 won’t stop flickering. Why don’t you go talk to Clint?”

 

“Hey.” He leaned against Clint’s doorframe.

“You look…happy.”

“I need you to come upstairs.”

“Why?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were so busy, locked up down here counting your ammo for the millionth time.”

 

The door opened, and he led Clint inside. Steve was half-curled up on the couch.

“You snuck someone in?”

“There wasn’t a whole lot of sneaking.” He clapped his hands. “Wakey wakey eggs and bakey.”

Steve attempted to burrow deeper into the cushions. This forced the shirt and jacket up, and the pants down, revealing a strip of grey skin just above his hip.

Clint had a pistol pulled and trained on his target in a heartbeat.

“Whoa!” He lightly adjusted the aim of the weapon downwards. Though really, the floor wasn’t a safe place to aim either with people downstairs and everything. After a beat of silence, he had to ask “Why did you bring a gun?”

“You would have noticed me grabbing my bow.”

“Why are you bringing weapons up here in the first place?”

“You’ve been weird, I’m not exactly a lucky guy.”

Steve chose that moment to roll over, sit and stretch, complete with entirely unhealthy noises.

Clint stared. Pouted. “Aww, Tony.” His words were pitying.

Steve stood up, and Tony stood beside him. “He’s different.”

The aim returned. “Yeah, I think he wants to hold your hand. Maybe he and the rest of his friends can come over later and we’ll have a bonfire and sing Kumbaya.”

“Don’t knnow…Kumbaya.”

He directed Clint’s attention to Steve with both hands, as though he was a magician who had just successfully pulled off a complicated trick.

The weapon slowly lowered again. “What are we dealing with here?” Curious Clint was good. He paid more attention when he was curious.

“No idea. Still working that out. Currently treating this as a sort-of-brainwashed scenario. Talking to him seems to have helped.”

The two blondes stared at each other.

“Don’t kill each other.”

 

It was easy enough to repair the lighting issue.

 

When he got back to his level, it was empty.

 

By the time he found them, the vague sense of worry had turned into something like dread. Then he had heard the scream and ran towards it. He couldn’t stop the thought that he had made a miscalculation, that he had killed everyone because he had misjudged what was really going on.

He rounded the corner and nearly got bowled over.

Steve was  _running_. In new clothes. With a kid on his shoulders and another at his heels. The girl treating him like her own personal pony begged to go faster, then screamed as he listened to her. The ends of her braids, fastened with small bow-shaped clips, flopped up and down with each footfall.

Clint stood with a small cluster of people.

Tony beckoned him over with a smile towards the Williams’ that he hadn’t had to plaster on since his last media appearance.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting him around people. It’s not good to be cooped up alone. We can’t stop you from doing it, but I gave him a choice and he picked socializing.”

“You thought that was a good idea?”

“He had a hell of a time with stairs, but now he’s running around like a normal person. You tell me.”

The little girl’s brother chased after the pair of them with a neon green nerf gun. Steve had managed to grab a throw pillow from somewhere, and was using it to block the foam projectiles. He wasn’t as fast as he was before, but nothing about him screamed “undead people eating machine”.

“Like you weren’t going to have him meet everybody anyway.”

“Not so many at once.”

“Relax. He can pass as someone who’s just had a rough couple of years as long as the light’s not too harsh and you don’t expect long replies. With some of that aftershave that you had hidden, he doesn’t even smell much worse than the rest of us. Bob didn’t even bat an eye when they shook hands.”

Steve had taken a knee and extricated himself from the kids grasp. An older guy named Ray handed him a water bottle as the girl ran for a toy weapon of her own. Steve seemed to consider it for a moment before squirting some into his mouth. He was careful not to put his lips on it, which was good considering the methods of transmission weren’t completely clear. “No one’s recognized him?”

As though summoned by the power of tempting fate alone, the familiar click of heels cut through all other noise. Why she continued to wear them was a mystery. She looked at every face in the group before her gaze fell on Steve. She noticed the change as quickly as she had registered the face.

And that expression, right there, for just a fraction of a second? That was Pepper broken.

It was gone, replaced with calm professionalism. Her smile would bring a lesser man to his knees.

“Tony.” Her nails dug into the flesh of his shoulder. She was worried.

“To be fair,  _Clint_  was the one who made them mingle and having him help was your idea.”

“That’s…”

“Yeah. I know. He was still wearing the stars and stripes when I ran into him.”

“He’s…”

“Kind of dead, but not about to hurt anyone.”

Steve nodded at a question a member of their group asked. It wasn’t small talk, but it was interaction.

“How?”

“No idea.”

“Look at me.” Brown eyes met his. “Are you okay?”

“I’m good.”

“Tony.”

He swallowed past the knot in his throat. “He’s back. I don’t care how, or why. He’s back.” He let out his breath slowly. “I’m as good as I’ve been in a long time.”


	10. Chapter 10

The light of dawn had forced him awake.  The night had brought with it dreams. Vivid ones. Scenarios he’d never seen played out in reality, things that could never happen but that had felt so real that waking up was entirely disorientating. He stretched and rolled his neck with a yawn. He was supposed to go help with the garden. Pepper had wasted no time putting him on rotation. His week was planned out for him immediately. Well, after a stern talking to about leaving people behind and a hug.

The smell of hot metal got his attention. “Tony?”

There was no answer.

Tony’s open door was as good as an invitation.

 

Unfortunately, he hadn’t expected the new pile of what appeared to be a dismantled printer to be in his path. He stepped on a piece of plastic, skidded on the carpet, and went down.

The stream of profanity that passed his lips would have made one of the Commandos blush.

It only made Tony smirk.

His hand blazed, and he clutched it with a hiss. He stared at the splash of liquid going between his fingertips and filling his palm before forcing himself to uncurl his fingers. Red emerged from a jagged cut that had to be from a broken piece of plastic. Blood- bright red, hot and most importantly,  _flowing_. Tony had returned to his project, which looked like a mess of glass and metal over fire.

He could hear his own heartbeat rushing in his ears. “Tony?”

“Don’t worry about it, Cap. I didn’t need that. I am making coffee.”

“Tony.”

“What?”

He held up his hand.

The coffee was abandoned and he had Tony’s fingertips pressing against the inside of his wrist. When Tony laughed and said a soft “We’ve got a pulse.” he couldn’t help himself. The smiling face was so close to his own, it seemed only right to lean closer and press his lips against Tony’s.

It didn’t feel like a bad idea until he pulled away. Then, every reason why he hadn’t done this before decided to come to mind and a thousand apologies threatened to break free.

Tony blinked at him. “You kissed me.”

And the blush was definitely there this time.

He hadn’t expected Tony’s fingers in his hair, pulling him back down for more. Or the lips to move across his jaw to his neck. Or the possessive “Never letting you out of my sight again.”

  
  


Turns out a lot of things had gone unsaid, and neither of them would let a second chance go to waste.

  
  
  


Radio signals didn’t start to come in until months later. They had thought that they were the only ones who had a change like this to speak of. Turns out the rest of the world was seeing the same. Small groups and stadiums began to report their experiences.

Rhodey came back on foot with a group behind him, some greyer than others and fresh from the west coast.

America was taking its first steps towards being a country again, and they would be there to help it.

After all, saving the world was kind of their thing. This time just didn’t involve as much violence as it usually did.


End file.
